


apple blossom tree in the front yard

by Ashling



Category: Love/Hate (TV)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Domestic, Fix-It, Fluff, Gen, This is as happy as I can get while still remaining vaguely canon-typical, Tommy Daly finally gets his puppy, and Siobhan Delaney finally gets a bit of peace, that's it that's the fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-15
Updated: 2020-06-15
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:00:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24731224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ashling/pseuds/Ashling
Summary: Five things Siobhan doesn't know, and one thing she does.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 3





	apple blossom tree in the front yard

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jjscm](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jjscm/gifts).



> Congratulations on finishing the series, and I hope this fluff can help soothe the painfulness of that intense finale. <3

1\. She doesn't know how the cops got possession of an old farmhouse for the safekeeping of witnesses. She did look for bullet holes in the walls; she did scrub every single surface before she let Leighton step foot in it; she still doesn't trust it. Not entirely. But she's bought two big cans of sky blue paint for Leighton's room, and that is not nothing. She has put a little oil on the door hinges so they no longer creak in the night. She has managed to cook a full Sunday dinner in that cramped kitchen, beef and potatoes. The house came with a baker's dozen chickens, and none of them have died on her yet. All this has to count for something.

2\. She doesn't know how much Leighton remembers. He's a quiet child, like she never was, like Tommy never was, and she fears that difference between them even as she hopes that it will lead to an entirely different kind of person. She has nightmares and she doesn't even know if Tommy is capable of dreaming but she is so scared, sometimes, that Leighton can sense the memories she's trying to forget. He was not there for the shooting, at least. He's seen guns—she couldn't help that—but he's never heard a live gunshot, not ever, not even once. She is proud of that. He's pale like his mother but he has his father's old wry smile. His dark little eyes are so knowing, sometimes. 

3\. She doesn't know if she wants Nidge dead. One of the detectives, Terry, had told her that it would probably happen, that Nidge had too many enemies to stay in prison long, and God yes she hates him but she doesn't know if hatred is enough for that. She's so tired of death's finality being held up as some kind of panacea. it's a hydra beheaded, not a capstone. Evil too can grow. Terry had told her some grotesque stories, with gusto, all of powerful men brought to bloody ends and she had stared vacantly at her hands, wondering if any of this is what she wanted, and if any of this happened, would it be her fault for putting him there? Thinking of Tommy, half-slaughtered and saved and nearly slaughtered again, the churn of it, and Nidge popping up on a different side every time. When he was a danger to her family, everything was so clear. Now that he's stripped of power, she can't decide anymore. And doesn't know why it should matter.

4\. She doesn't know if the gun will be any use. When they come, if they come, whoever they are. Hired by Nidge. Or by the man who shot at them both, if he's still angry. Detective Moynihan told her that it shouldn't be a problem, that the man was only after Nidge and so she should be fine, but there's a chunk of flesh missing from her left shoulder that says it doesn't matter who is after who; she's in this thing twice over, blood and ring both. What would Detective Moynihan do, if she had to use the gun, she wonders. She knows what she would do if she had to. That much is clear. But she wonders if this self-defense would go down as just another crime in the long Delany-Daly family history, and if she would go down too. Still she can't seem to get rid of the gun.

5\. She doesn't know how long this can last. Tommy always seems to be improving or worsening, but when she finally sits down and tries to journal his health, she finds no pattern at all, nothing for hope or fear, just endless odd swings towards or away from mental clarity. She tries things out for a couple weeks—diet, exercise, routine—sees no overall change, tries again. She doesn't know for whose sake she's trying. Tommy doesn't seem unhappy, most times, and if he's still terribly afraid he does not speak of it to her. He has kissed her a few times, each time unexpected, but slow, so she wasn't exactly caught. Like a question, those kisses. Flat and chaste. She doesn't mind, not really; it seems to comfort him, and Leighton is in a phase right now of running and yelling and not sticking around for cuddles even when she'd really like some. Leighton changes and they, his parents, never do, all the way down to a little blood coming from Tommy's ear. Every now and then. If he collapses they will have to go back to Dublin, or at least a city. It's over any day now. But not yet. 

+1 She knows there are times when she's happy. The first time she made Leighton scrambled eggs with the chickens from their own garden. The first time she opened her bank account and saw that the money Nidge owed them has finally showed up. And then, unexpected moments like today. A farmer's market, with Leighton, because she worries sometimes that he's too isolated at the house. For cover, she bought two pairs of contacts online, one green and one blue, and has her left eye blue while her right eye is green. It's a striking thing that people only notice if they look at her closely. It's a lie they'll remember, she hopes. Silly, to approach a farmer's market like a spy would approach assassination, but it makes her feel a little bit better, enough to chat with the vendor as Leighton tries to pick a jam from the samples, gets half a dozen smears on his face, his chin, his little hands. There is something so extravagantly painless about the anonymity and the friendly farmers and even Leighton who is practically on his best behavior, so that when he squats down near a basket of puppies labeled _Free to a Good Home,_ she doesn't want to jinx it with a no.

So they get a dog. Black and white, like a piebald horse, with ears so silken she can barely believe they're real. Both Leighton and puppy go into overdrive on the way home, yapping at each other like they've invented their own language, so ecstatic that by the time she pulls into the drive, they're both asleep. She picks them up and carries them in, startled when Tommy opens the door for her. He was asleep when she left. He takes such long naps in the middle of the day, this is wholly unexpected. But the grin on him when he sees the child and the puppy, like he too is nothing more than an easily pleased kid, so intensely simple that for a little while, she's prepared to believe that he really is nothing more than straightforwardly happy.

The boy she tucks into bed; the puppy she deposits on the sofa, whereupon Tommy curls up next to it like a cat himself. Chin resting on the sofa cushion, eyes big. Fish tonight, Siobhan decides, and they've no dog food yet so he'll have fish too. "What will we name him?" Tommy says, and it's such a natural question, they are almost husband and wife again, husband and wife in a farmhouse with their son napping safe in his bed, they are almost what she thought they could be when she saw the blue line all those years ago and felt a leap of excitement—excitement first, and then fear. In the days when fear didn't always come first. She still remembers. "What do you want to name him?" she says, and he thinks about it, and she waits for the answer. The answer to her question is coming, and it might even be a good one.


End file.
